With Budget Resolved, Senate Turns Attention To Immigration Reform

posted by Bill Galluccio -

Feb 9, 2018

With the budget crisis in the rearview mirror, the Senate will turn it's attention to DACA next week. DACA is the Obama-era policy that has protected Dreamers, the young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised Democrats that he would put immigration reform on the Senate floor and pledged to make it a full and open process.

According to The Hill, McConnell is planning to start the debate on Monday when he will hold a procedural vote on a shell bill passed by the House. That bill has nothing to do with immigration, which will allow "the Senate start from scratch."

The bill I move to, which will not have underlying immigration text, will have an amendment process that will ensure a level playing field at the outset

The Senate is expected to spend most of the week attempting to come to a compromise that can earn the 60 votes needed to pass.

The White House released a framework on immigration reform that would offer a path to citizenship for around 1.8 million people while funding a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico and make controversial changes to the immigration system.

That proposal faces little support from Democrats who are concerned "about cuts to legal immigration and limits on family-based immigration."

Lawmakers have a March 5 deadline to pass a bill that will protect nearly 700,000 immigrants brought into the country illegally as children from deportation.